1

New York Campus Compact Weekly

In This Issue:
January 27, 2012
1333343444567-

Spotlight on Members
Call for Spotlights Call for Campus-Based Resources Campus Election Engagement Project Call for Exemplary Program Examples Education Award Program Deadline Extended Ehrlich Award Newman Civic Fellows Award Sillerman Prize Ernest A. Lynton Award NYMAPS Call for Proposals Institute on Philanthropy and Voluntary Service STEM Diversity Summit

Spotlight on Members Cornell University

Cornell Chronicle, January 26, 2012 by Anne Ju http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Jan12/acTamara.html

Tamara, HONDURAS -- It was a full-blown fiesta, complete with a mariachi band, platters of food and boisterous children. No westerner who takes clean, drinkable tap water for granted could possibly have guessed the reason for the Jan. 13 party -- the "inauguration" of a water filter designed by Cornell engineering students. The stacked rapid sand filter, developed by members of Cornell's AguaClara research team, could well be the reason that Tamara, a working-class town of about 3,500, now has some of the best water in all of Honduras. AguaClara team members, spending two weeks in Honduras, got to celebrate in person. Attending the filter inauguration was a highlight of the team's Jan. 6-20 journey through the country, accompanied by their leader, civil and environmental engineering senior lecturer Monroe Weber-Shirk.

Save the Date:

March 20, 2012 STEM Diversity Summit March 30, 2012, 12:00 5:00 pm: 4 Annual New York Metro Area Partnership for Service-Learning (NYMAPS) Symposium, St. Johns University Manhattan Campus, 101 Murray Street, New York, NY 10007
th

May 31- June 1, 2012: The Fifth Annual Institute on Global ServiceLearning, hosted by Cornell University October 11-12, 2012: The Second Annual Eastern Region Campus Compact Conference: Promoting Clear Pathways to Civic Engagement, hosted by Dartmouth College

Tori Klug '14 and Drew Hart, M.Eng. '11, watch as raw water enters the AguaClara treatment plant in Tamara.

Spotlight continued on page 2

Spotlight continued from page 1

It was the seventh annual AguaClara trip; Weber-Shirk considers it an integral part of the students' work and research. They get to see the brick-and-mortar plants, interact with the engineers and operators who build and run them, and meet the people whose lives have been changed by having clean water for the first time. The filter is the latest chapter in Tamara's story of clean water, which began four years ago when the town's local water board laid the first stone of a much-anticipated AguaClara water treatment plant. Tamara is AguaClara's second completed water treatment plant; since then, six more plants have come online. The team designs water treatment technologies in partnership with the Honduran nonprofit organization Agua Para el Pueblo (APP), which supplies technical expertise and education to municipalities about clean water. The stacked rapid sand filter's design team included Mickey Adelman, M.S. '12, who lived in Honduras this past summer to help oversee construction and implement it, along with Anderson Cordero '10, M.Eng. '11, and Jeff Will '10, M.Eng. '11, a Fulbright scholar and AguaClara engineer stationed in Honduras. The filter is truly like no other, Weber-Shirk said. "Slow sand filters were first used in 1829. Rapid sand filters were invented around 1890. Stacked rapid sand filters were invented by Cornell in 2010," Weber-Shirk said. Adelman and Will explained that the filter works like filters in the U.S. but with an innovative geometry. It is essentially six mini filters stacked on top of each other, whereas conventional filters typically consist of only one sand bed. The stacking allows for sufficient velocities during backwash, which is a process to clean the contaminants that collect in the filter every day -- without the use of pumps. Over the years, AguaClara has designed an efficient, sustainable process for treating water without the use of electricity -- ideal for resource-poor communities. Water first enters the plant and is treated with a coagulant that causes impurities to form clumps, called flocs, in a process called flocculation. After flocculation, the water flows into a sedimentation tank, in which the flocs settle out of the water. The last step, filtration, further purifies the water by passing the water through beds of sand. For AguaClara, putting a filter in at Tamara was a major innovation because filters generally require more infrastructure than towns like Tamara can afford, such as large pumps for generating high flow rates. Tamara is now producing water that exceeds World Health Organization standards. On Jan. 12, it was producing water at 0.5 NTU, which is a universal measure of the water's turbidity, or clarity; the World Health Organization's standard is 1. The water is so pure that as soon as AguaClara students arrived in Tamara, they began filling their water bottles straight from the tap.

The stacked rapid sand filter, an AguaClara innovation, makes Tamara's water some of the best in Honduras.

Tamara residents attend the inauguration of the stacked rapid sand filter, Jan. 13.

Call for Spotlights, News Articles, and Event Listings

Do you want to see your stories and events featured in our newsletter? Everyone involved in the work of civic engagement and community-based education has a story to tell, and New York Campus Compact is eager to help you tell yours. Every Friday, we feature the outstanding work of our member institutions in a Spotlight on Members and news articles in our newsletter. This newsletter is emailed to over 950 college and university presidents, service learning faculty, community service directors and civic engagement offices at our member campuses. The article should be about 1 page or less, describing a particular course, program, event, or project that you want to share with your colleagues. Please indicate if you would like your article featured on the front page as a Spotlight on Members or if we should include it in the body of our newsletter. You may e-mail your spotlight or news article entry to:nycc@cornell.edu.

Call for Campus-Based Resources in New York State

NYCC is developing a New York State Resource Corps. If you or someone on your campus has expertise that you would be willing to share, WE WANT TO KNOW YOU! We are looking for people with expertise in the following areas: campus-community partnerships (local, national, international); developing an academic servicelearning program, community/civic engagement student leadership programs, a successful faculty development program for service-learning and community-based research, or other community-civic engagement related initiatives, programs, policies on your campus. Please send a short description of the expertise you have to nycc@cornell.edu. Be sure to include your contact information (e-mail, name, title/institution, phone number). There is no limit to the number of experts per institution, so please forward this e-mail to everyone on your campus who has expertise in this area.

2012 Presidential Election Campus Election Engagement Project

NYCC is interested in supporting campus efforts to mobilize student interest and involvement in the upcoming presidential election. (Please note: these efforts must explicitly and legally exclude any students involved in our Education Award Program or personnel involved in our VISTA program.) We will be partnering with Paul Loeb again this year to encourage campus-based, bipartisan efforts to highlight the critical issues we face in our decision to elect the next president, as well as future decisions in Congressional elections. Please review Pauls e-mail announcing the relaunching of the Campus Election Engagement Project and respond to him with any interest and examples from your campus. http://nycampuscompact.org/News.aspx

Call for Exemplary Program Examples in New York State

NYCC is building a database of exemplary university/college community and civic engagement programs across the State. If your campus has what you consider to be an exemplary program, institutional initiative, or campus-community partnership, please let us know by completing the form at: http://nycampuscompact.org/ExemplaryProgramExamples.aspx

New York Campus Compact AmeriCorps Education Award Program Deadline Extended
Through a grant from the Corporation for National and Community Service and the New York State Commission on National and Community Service, NYCC has received additional AmeriCorps Education Award Program (EAP) funding for the 2011-2012 program year. EAP fosters civic engagement among higher education students, promotes the National Service movement, and encourages positive relationships between campuses and communities. The program meets critical community needs by engaging college students in service as part-time AmeriCorps members, and fostering within them an ethic of civic responsibility. Upon successful completion of 300 hours of service in a calendar year, students are eligible to receive a $1,175 Education Award to be applied toward outstanding federal student loans or the cost of attendance at a college or university. With rising tuition costs the education award earned upon successful completion of the program helps make service a viable opportunity for students with financial need. Campuses who are interested in implementing the NYCC EAP on their campus should contact Brittany Campese asap at bcampese@cornell.edu or 607-2546239. The following campuses have been already been awarded Education Award Program positions for 2011-2012: o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o Binghamton University Buffalo State College Cayuga Community College Cornell University Corning Community College Hobart & William Smith Colleges Nazareth College New York University Niagara University Purchase College Rochester Institute of Technology St. Lawrence University SUNY College at Old Westbury Syracuse University University of Rochester

Ehrlich Civically Engaged Faculty Award

The Thomas Ehrlich Civically Engaged Faculty Award recognizes one senior faculty member each year. Honorees are recognized for exemplary engaged scholarship, including leadership in advancing students' civic learning, conducting community-based research, fostering reciprocal community partnerships, building institutional commitments to servicelearning and civic engagement, and other means of enhancing higher education's contributions to the public good. The award is named in honor of Thomas Ehrlich, former chair of the Campus Compact board of directors and president emeritus of Indiana University. The award winner is granted $2,000 and the opportunity to conduct a session at the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) Annual Conference 2013. Four finalists will also be featured in a panel presentation at the conference. Nominations will be accepted from colleagues, community partners, college presidents, provosts, or through selfnomination. For more information about the 2012 Thomas Ehrlich Civically Engaged Faculty Award and to access the Nomination Form, please go here.

Recommendations for 2012 Newman Civic Fellows Are Now Open

We are excited to announce that Campus Compact is now accepting recommendations for the 2012 Newman Civic Fellows awards, an initiative that acknowledges and connects student leaders from member colleges and universities. In 2011, when we first launched the Fellows award, 137 students were named. This year, our sights are set much higher because word-of-mouth has spread widely about the awards. The award honors the late Frank Newman, a tireless advocate for the civic engagement of higher education and one of Campus Compacts founders. The Newman Civic Fellows Awards are a presidential recognition. Campus Compact member presidents are invited to recommend one student leader for each campus. These outstanding student leaders should be individuals who engage in efforts to create systemic change in communities throughout the country through service, research, and advocacy. Second- and third- year students from four-year institutions and secondyear students at two-year institutions are eligible. Presidents may nominate just one student each year to receive this honor. That student will represent her/his institution as part of a national group of student leaders dedicated to public problem solving. Students receive an award certificate and an invitation to join the Newman Civic Fellows online network. Please encourage college and university leaders to recognize a student through this special award: http://www.compact.org/initiatives/campus-compact-awards-programs/the-frank-newman-leadership-award/

Third Annual Sillerman Prize for Innovations in Philanthropy (Open to undergraduates and graduate students--2012)
The Sillerman Center for the Advancement of Philanthropy at the Heller School, Brandeis University announces its Third Annual Sillerman Prize for Innovations in Philanthropy on College Campuses. This $5,000 award for the best business plan to increase philanthropy and philanthropic values on college campuses is due on March 2, 2012. A letter of intent to apply is due on February 3, 2012. Applications for submission and letter of intent are available at: Here. Applicants can be matched with philanthropy mentors who can discuss ideas on the phone, and do one read through before submission. Faculty and staff at the students college are allowed to provide help and suggestions and should represent not more than 10% of the effort as this is a student competition. If you have any questions contact: Claudia Jacobs at cjacobs@brandeis.edu If faculty or staff are interested in being judges for the competition and reading written applications, or volunteering to be listed as a philanthropy mentor, please also contact cjacobs@brandeis.edu

2012 Ernest A. Lynton Award for the Scholarship of Engagement for Early Career Faculty
Sponsored by the New England Resource Center for Higher Education (NERCHE), The annual Ernest A. Lynton Award for the Scholarship of Engagement for Early Career Faculty recognizes a faculty member who is pre-tenure at tenure-granting campuses or early career (i.e., within the first six years) at campuses with long-term contracts and who connects his or her teaching, research, and service to community engagement. The award will be presented at the 18th Annual Conference of the Coalition of Urban and Metropolitan Universities (CUMU) which will be held from October 13-16, 2012, at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. CUMU is a cosponsor of the Award. Nominators will submit nominations via an online application. To submit an application, please see the Application Instructions: Here. Application Deadline: Friday, April 27, 2012.

Call for Proposals

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

New York Metro Area Partnership for Service-Learning 4th Annual Symposium Ethics and ServiceLearning: Best Practices for Empowering Community Partners and Educating Students
Friday, March 30, 2012 12:00 - 5:00 p.m. St. John's University Manhattan Campus 101 Murray Street New York, NY 10007 Proposals due February 15, 2012 at 5 p.m.
Overview The Symposium will continue our discussion of ethics and service-learning. Goals for the event include:
Explore ethical dimensions in community-based work locally, nationally and globally Showcase higher education faculty members, community organization representatives, servicelearning program administrators and students sharing service-learning outcomes and program models Inspire participants to learn from best practices and examples of service-learning innovation Engage people at all levels of experience to increase their knowledge of service-learning in higher education Build connections among campus and community representatives interested in working together Encourage multiple institutions of higher education and community organizations to collaborate on Symposium presentations and community projects

For more information, please click here

THE STEM DIVERSITY SUMMIT

Tuesday, March 20, 2012 ~ 8:00 AM 1:30 PM

SAVE THE DATE

Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics -The Engine of Long Islands FutureJoin nationally distinguished scientists, mathematicians, educators, students, public officials, business and non-profit leaders in a day of discussions on how to fully prepare Long Islands students for productive roles in our rapidly changing world. The Advancing Diversity in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) through Collaboration and Community Summit, in alliance with New York State STEP/CSTEP will explore innovative ways to strengthen STEM teaching and learning in the 21st century in order to meet the pressing demands of the workforce.

Science Technology Engineering Mathematics

ADVANCING DIVERSITY THROUGH COLLABORATION AND COMMUNITY

For further information, contact Dr. Veronica Henry: 631-420-2622; veronica.henry@farmingdale.edu

Educating Citizens, Building Communities

New York Campus Compact 95 Brown Road, Box 1006 Ithaca, NY 14850 607-255-2366 www.nycampuscompact.org